Mandarin's growing clout in HK job market

Since the financial centre was handed over to China in the late 1990s, Mandarin skills have increasingly become a must for job seekers in certain banking segments.

In a sign of China’s mushrooming importance in Hong Kong’s financial services sector, an analysis of 600 banking job vacancies in the city by a financial careers web portal found that 53% of investment and corporate banking positions now require Mandarin proficiency.

“This is something that’s been talked about in the industry for quite some time, so the study’s findings were not massively surprising,” said Neil Clark, marketing director Asia Pacific for eFinancialCareers, which conducted...